Abstract

The issue of resourcing the pre-award and idea stage of a proposal is a tricky one as there exists hardly any funding to pay for the costs that occur before any project starts. The pre-award experts are usually employed by the organization but work in different units and positions. They have to be ready to work and flexible during busy application times. Another difficulty is the uncertainty of the outcome: resources may be used for an unsuccessful application and therefore in some sense wasted. This spent time will get no compensation from any source of funding.

Different models on resourcing are currently in use in different organizations. Main question is: Who pays for the preparation work? Is it the faculties or is the budget centralised and shared between the people and units who use it? What kind of other models exist? Who decides for the often limited hours of pre-award experts and on what basis? All the models have their particular consequences on issues like roles of the applicant and the expert and time management of the experts.

In this 15-minute table we will introduce two contrary models in which the pre-award budgets are allocated differently. The other model does not resource by application whereas the other model has a strict resourcing system.

In “Faculties as customers” model the faculties or units in universities pay for the pre-award services from their own budget. This model works like an inside consultant office where the all the pre-award services are bought separately for specially specified needs. Pre-award teams distribute their work to faculties according to the needs. The resources of the pre-award services are visible to everybody who uses them and their use needs to be constantly negotiated. Both pre-award teams and their customers are aware of the costs of their work. This may lead to a situation where the services are bought only to certain extent which may not cover the necessary time to complete a successful application. This model also requires a centralised order and resourcing system.

If an organisation uses a model with ‘Centrally bought services’, the pre-award resources are to a large extent invisible to the applicants. They contact the pre-award services when they need help and are served if the services have time to allocate to the particular application. The funds for the services are centralised and taken from the overheads or other organisation funding. As this system does not account for resources (hours) used for each proposal there has to be another method of limiting the services. This may lead to first come first served services and vague responsibility of using the resources.

Learning outcomes: 1) Knowledge of the different existing models of resource allocation in pre-award stage 2) Understanding of the consequences of different models and 3) Ideas for organising and budgeting the pre-award services in research organisations.